William E. Thro

   His Biography |  His Publications  |  His Supreme Court Briefs

As State Solicitor General of Virginia from 2004 to 2008, he was responsible for the Virginia State Government's U.S. Supreme Court litigation (except capital cases) as well as lower court appeals involving the constitutionality of statutes or politically sensitive issues. He argued two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and thirty-one cases in the lower appellate courts. A recipient of a National Association of Attorneys General Best Brief Award, he co-authored five U.S. Supreme Court merits briefs, eleven amicus briefs, and more than fifty briefs at the petition stage.

His scholarship focuses on constitutional law in education contexts. In addition to co-editing three books, he has authored or co-authored three monographs, ten book chapters, and more than forty articles in scholarly journals. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Education Law Association, the Editorial Advisory Committee of the Education Law Reporter, the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Educational Reform, the Advisory Board of the Encyclopedia of Higher Education Law, the Editorial Board of the Journal of College & University Law and as a Contributing Author to the Yearbook of Education Law. He has presented more than fifty speeches at regional, national, and international conferences. He is a Fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys - the organization's highest honor for legal scholarship and contributions to higher education law.

Prior to becoming Christopher Newport University's first in-house counsel, he was Interim General Counsel at Old Dominion University, chief counsel for Norfolk State University, and litigation counsel for the Colorado State University, the Colorado Department of Education, and the Colorado School of Mines. He began his legal career as judicial clerk to Judge Ronald E. Meredith of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Having spent his entire career in government service, he is profiled in Beyond The Big Firm: Profiles of Lawyers Who Want Something More (Alan B. Morrison & Diane T. Chin, eds., 2007).

A Harry S. Truman Scholar and a Rotary Foundation International Ambassadorial Scholar to Australia, he received his B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Hanover College and his M.A . with Honours from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His J.D. is from the University of Virginia where he was a published member of the Virginia Law Review and research assistant to constitutional law professor A.E. Dick Howard.